Boy reports abduction attempt

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, November 5, 2008

By CHASE WRIGHT

cwright@thestamfordtimes.com

STAMFORD -- Stamford police responded to a call Wednesday afternoon of a masked man who attempted to lure a young boy into his van, police said.

The 12-year-old boy was getting off the school bus at Revonah Avenue around 2:45 p.m., when he noticed a dark blue van pass him slowly and then double back, said Lt. Sean Cooney, Stamford police spokesman. The man had apparently tried to engage the boy in conversation. He immediately ran home and told his mother, who subsequently called the police.

The man's age and race where unidentifiable because of the mask, said Cooney. His vehicle was described as a dark blue work van, with no rear windows.

Revonah Avenue is in the downtown section of Stamford, just north of the Tully Health Center on Strawberry Hill Avenue.

Cooney said police found some of the boy's initial testimony to be a bit unusual. For one, child abductors will normally lure their victims in with playful talk or candy, he said, which was not the case here.

"You're not going to entice a small child with a mask, said Cooney. "That would only scare them."

Police are treating this as a worst-case-scenario situation, meaning the man was attempting to abduct the boy, said Cooney.

"Sometimes these things are nothing more than a misunderstanding or exaggeration," said Cooney.